Confidence
by rannadylin
Summary: Lenneth was a drifter, a con artist, a survivor. Now she's a Watcher and she's in over her head. Aloth was a dutiful agent for forces whose true nature he never understood. Now he's finding common ground with a girl as broken, and yet as resilient, as he is, as she fights to keep the madness of her Awakening at bay. For two to whom deception comes so naturally, they must learn to t
1. Scene the First: The Bridge

Something had changed since Defiance Bay burned. The Watcher had been a person of interest since she first turned up in Gilded Vale, of course. But Aloth's interest in her had shifted, bit by bit, with every new angle come to light of the Leaden Key's true intentions versus the character of the woman he now followed. For all his years serving the Leaden Key, it seemed he had known its nature far less clearly than he thought he knew Lenneth after just a few weeks in her company. She deserved better than the lies upon which their alliance had initially been founded.

Even so, it had taken every ounce of courage he could muster, plus a generous dose of the panicked, sinking feeling that had risen in him ever since the animancy hearings fell to chaos and took the city down with them, to come clean to the Watcher. Granted, it had been months since he had truly acted on the Leaden Key's behalf, whereas he had spent those months serving Lenneth very well, he hoped. But she might have justifiably hated him for the secrets he'd kept.

Instead, she'd blinked at him, speechless, for a moment as she processed his confession, lit ominously by the flickering flames of the city in chaos just beyond the bridge. Chaos for which Aloth felt a share of the responsibility. And then she'd eyed him thoughtfully for a moment more while the rest of her companions offered their advice - mostly tending towards exactly the suspicious and healthy distrust Aloth was certain he'd earned.

It was Edér's affable vote of what might possibly be construed as confidence that finally yanked Lenneth back into the conversation. "I still feel kinda attached, even with the betrayal," the big man was saying while Lenneth pursed her lips and inspected Aloth through narrowed eyes. "He's got this way of taking offense that I really like. Tough one."

The Watcher's head snapped round to look up at Edér, her chin cocked at an angle of challenge. "Betrayal?" she echoed. "Were any of you listening? Maybe it's a betrayal, but it was never _us_ he was betraying." She stepped forward then, away from her cautious councillors, impulsively reaching for Aloth's hands. He flinched at the contact, but the warmth of her hands and of her sudden smile brought back the memory of Bellasege's chambers. As surely as it had then, the weight of Lenneth's hands in his tethered him, a lifeline through the frenzy of his anxious thoughts, till he could listen clearly enough to recognize forgiveness in her words. "I want you beside me, not behind me," she said, low enough that the other companions, impatiently tapping their feet and casting curious glances at the two elves from across the bridge, might not hear. "I'm not asking you to trade one master for another."

Aloth swallowed, nodded. "That...would be an honor."


	2. Scene the Second: The Pistol

She'd meant it figuratively, Lenneth thought, the part about wanting Aloth beside her, but it was starting to become rather literal. Bit by bit, she was leaving the front line of battle to Edér and drifting back towards the fireball-casting range that Aloth normally haunted. It was just because of the pistol, she told herself.

The pistol that they'd found in Galvino's workshop certainly was a nice one, and a capable weapon. Lenn, for her part, was more accustomed to close combat with her blades. But those skills had been honed through years of street fights. Her goal back then was mostly _avoiding_ conflict, all too ready to cut and run when yet another town saw through her cons, putting her daggers to the test only when there was nowhere left to run. Safer, that way. Stay alive, keep herself safe to keep her sister and brother safe. It was different, now, having people who depended on her in fights they really couldn't run from. Lenn was as determined to keep her friends safe as she had once been to keep her siblings safe, but that meant facing fights even when she was in over her head.

Aloth was not the first to chide her for being too reckless, but it was his voice that finally brought her around. He had expressed his disapproval of her proximity to the fray before, of course (they all had, at some point), but ever since that moment on the bridge when he'd told her how he had worked for the Leaden Key, things were changing between them. Her acceptance and forgiveness of his past - such an obvious conclusion to her; she couldn't afford to drive away a friend like him, especially when what he was confessing had all happened before they even met, technically - seemed to fire him to ever greater devotion. And with that, greater conviction. It was not uncommon now for her to awaken from the dreadful dreams of the past to find Aloth at her side beneath the night sky, his face drawn in sympathy. He brewed teas over the campfire for her, to quiet the voices that disturbed her rest (it was no great help with that, but the kindness of the gesture warmed her more than the drink itself).

So she was not at all surprised, swimming back to consciousness after yet again taking one too many blows from enemies who'd swarmed around her as she dashed too far ahead of her allies, to see Aloth standing over her while Kana bound her wounds.

The look of fury with which he regarded her, though: that was surprising.

Hiding her disconcert, she turned to Kana with some quip about having too many past lives awakened now for her soul to fit back on the Wheel. Over the aumaua's gentle chuckle, she could hear Aloth's huff of frustration. When she looked up again, he was gone.

"Was it something I said?" she wondered aloud.

"I gather that he doesn't like seeing you hurt," Kana offered as he tied off the last bandage.

Lenn prodded at the cloths wrapped round her side and winced. "I mean, I don't particularly like that myself…"

"Well, you'll heal and he'll be fine too," Kana encouraged with his toothy smile, giving her a hand up.

Twenty minutes later, they had finished dealing with the dead bodies of enemies and the damaged bodies of comrades. They had gathered their things and the spoils of the fallen. Five of them stood ready to march on, but Aloth was still nowhere to be seen. Lenneth tried hollering his name, with no response.

"He stormed off toward the creek," put in Sagani, whose hunt-honed eyes could be relied upon to miss nothing, "while Kana was finishing with you."

Lenneth looked where Sagani pointed, put her hands up to her mouth and hollered again. No response. She sighed, slid her pack to the ground and checked her blades in their scabbards. "You all wait here. I'll go find him."

The creek was only a few minutes' walk away. She found Aloth sitting there, his back to a tree, arms wrapped tightly around his knees, his head tucked between the well-muscled - (Her step faltered. She paused in her approach to lean against a tree of her own and took a moment to ponder when she had started noticing his arms like - well. Like that.) Catching her breath and her thoughts, and seeing that he seemed to be in no present danger, his shoulders rising and falling with regular breaths, she finally stepped forward.

"Hey," she called quietly. He looked up at her, eyes wide and dark. A look she couldn't name - relief? concern? - crossed his face. "So," she proceeded, trying to stumble neither over her words nor over the scattered stones near the stream, "we're about to move on. Didn't want to, um, leave without you?"

Aloth's face fell as he registered her meaning. "Oh, gods, I'm sorry," he said, springing to his feet. "Here I am, sulking and holding everyone up. Watcher, I apologize for my -"

"Hey," she said again, holding up her hand with a grin. "No worries. I'm not here to scold you, Aloth. Just...well, you seemed...um...what's wrong? It's not like you to leave like that."

His eyes flicked to the most visible of her bandages, low on her left arm, and then to the carefully wrapped spot on her torso, now concealed beneath her armor, that Kana had been tending to when last Aloth saw her. "I am sorry," he said again. "I may have overreacted."

"To me getting hurt?" she prompted.

Aloth sighed. "To you getting hurt, _again._ "

She put on her most winning smile. "But I'm fine. Nothing that won't heal in -"

"Not," he interrupted her with a step forward, "the point. Watcher...Lenneth. Do you know what it's like to watch from a distance as you go down, time and again, and be helpless to stop it?"

Lenneth flinched. "It's not really all that often, is it?"

"Oftener than it used to be, I believe," Aloth pleaded. "If anything, you're becoming more reckless."

"But I'm _fine_ ," Lenneth insisted. "I know the risks, but so many times I can finish the fight quicker if I just get in close."

Aloth's expression of carefully cultivated blandness shifted to the fiery sneer of Iselmyr intending to have her say. " _Aye, ye'll finish yersel' in the coorse o' it an' lea him heartbroken!_ "

He looked away, jaw twitching as he apparently struggled to rein in his elder half from saying more. Lenneth blinked, feeling slightly outnumbered as, for once, Iselmyr and Aloth seemed to be in agreement.

The pistol from Galvino's workshop lay holstered, seldom used, at her back. By the time Aloth had regained his composure enough to glance at her again, Lenneth was holding it out to him like a peace offering on both her outstretched hands. "Know anything about how to fire these?" she asked sheepishly, dropping her chin and looking up at him through her lashes.

"You...don't?" Aloth asked, lifting it cautiously from her hands after she nodded encouragingly.

"Not much," Lenneth admitted.

"But you've been carrying this for weeks."

"It's pretty. And it seemed like a useful backup, y'know? But I haven't found much of a use for it yet, so I haven't exactly gotten any practice in."

"Lenneth. When have you ever seen _me_ handle a firearm of any sort?"

She couldn't quite hold back the smirk at the thought of seeing the wizard do any such thing. She definitely couldn't hold back the blush at the sudden _desire_ to see such a thing. "Well, you're the one telling me to put the blades away, so…"

He met her eyes. "You're...taking me seriously."

"Well, of course!" Affronted, she grabbed the pistol back from him, studied it a moment, then tucked it back in its holster. "I mean...you have a fair point."

"Oh."

"And I'm very sorry I scared you like that, Aloth."

"Again, I'm sure I overreacted." He clasped his hands politely at his waist and stood watching her carefully.

"And...maybe it would be useful for me to at least get a few shots off from a distance, first, before I sneak in to put a blade where it can do the most damage."

"It might, at that." The corner of his lips twitched toward a smile.

 _Besides,_ Lenneth admitted only to herself, and whatever past lives of herself might be listening, as they walked in companionable silence back to the rest of the group, _I guess I really do prefer you beside me to behind me._


	3. Scene the Third: The Book

Grimoire management was a delicate business. The utmost concentration was essential, especially in the middle of a lively adventuring party's camp. Thus, Aloth failed to notice the Watcher's approach until she suddenly plopped down beside him as he was in the middle of imbuing one of his grimoire's pages with the soul energy necessary to cast Chain Lightning, tracing out the intricate lines of the spell on the yellowed page. Startled out of his intense concentration, he uttered an invective he'd learned from Iselmyr. Lenneth uttered a startled giggle. Aloth sighed.

"All right," he grumbled peevishly, "tell me what you want so I can get back to preparing for tomorrow. I'll have to start this page over now."

"Oh," Lenneth said, her voice soft, brows knitting in concern as she saw, too late, what she'd interrupted. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize."

"It's all right," Aloth sighed again, leaning back from the tome open on his lap and blinking away the eyestrain of such intense focus. "It's hardly urgent; I have all evening," he assured her, attempting to affect a polite and pleasant demeanor and not to think too much on her nearness or the warmth that seemed to radiate as if from her very soul in such proximity. He fancied that his grimoire, deprived suddenly of the energy he had been so carefully feeding it, tingled and shivered like iron filings about to leap to a magnet. "What can I do for you, Watcher?"

She eyed the tome for a moment longer before looking back to the wizard. "Do any of the special dishes you're supposed to serve for the Feast of Feasts involve boar?"

Aloth blinked at her. Once. Twice, before he could find words, and even then it was just to echo, "Boar?"

"Because Hiravias just brought one back - only _slightly_ mangled, but that's what you get when you send a stelgaer out as your hunting party - and it seemed like a special occasion might be warranted, and it _is_ the first week of Deep Summer, so I thought…" She finally trailed off and shrugged.

"I...haven't celebrated the Feast of Feasts for years," Aloth mused. "But yes, there is something involving a boar stuffed with small fowl on the fourth day."

"Effigy's eyes," Lenneth swore. "It's only Cönyngsdag. Don't know that the boar would keep for two more days, even if we wanted to bother dragging it along on the road."

"I should be very interested to see how you managed to cook such a dish on the road in the first place," Aloth said, not trying very hard to suppress the smirk that arose at the thought of her doing just that. "Why do you want to do such a thing, anyway?"

"For fun?" she shrugged. "To raise morale? I don't know, what's the point of roasting a whole boar _without_ making a special occasion of it?"

"I meant that it seems odd to celebrate an Aedyran holiday while you're traveling through the Dyrwood with a company consisting of _one_ whole Aedyran. Didn't you say you were from Rauatai?"

"Once upon a time," Lenneth admitted. "Haven't been back in years. And my parents both came from other places before they lingered in Rauatai long enough to have kids, so wandering's in my blood. Feels like I'm from a lot of places, these days."

"Have your travels taken you as far as Aedyr, then?" he asked, his voice lowering a bit in a sudden fit of...shyness, or something like it he couldn't quite name, at the thought of Lenneth in the land of his birth.

"Not yet," she said with a brief glance his way, and a look about her that somehow seemed in concord with the nameless feeling that had come over him.

"How do you know of the Feast of Feasts, then?" Aloth pressed. "I didn't think it was celebrated anywhere in this part of the world. Especially not in the Dyrwood, given its history with the fercönyng."

"Unfortunately not, as far as I know," she confirmed, producing a small, dog-eared book from a pocket somewhere. On its faded cover he could just make out the words _Aedyre Customs_. "Nicked it back in Defiance Bay," she explained as he thumbed through the narrow pages. "It's been good reading. It makes it all sound so...glamorous."

Aloth snorted. "Then it takes serious liberties. And as a wizard, I'm obliged to remind you that the point of a glamour is to conceal the reality."

"Oh, I know," Lenneth grinned, amusement bubbling through her voice. "Never ran a con that didn't call for a bit of _glamour_ to do just that." And she fluttered her eyelashes at him in a way that she probably meant only in jest at her former career, but its effect on him was more like she had cast some sort of gravity-twisting spell in the region of his stomach. Glamour, indeed. Feeling a moment's sympathy with the targets of her past cons, Aloth fixed his eyes on his grimoire and caught his breath as she babbled on, "Anyway, maybe we'll throw a proper Feast of Feasts when we're back at Caed Nua. Or the last day or two of it, anyway. You'll have to fill in the gaps for me on how to do it properly; the book's so short it doesn't go into much detail." She nudged him with an elbow till he reluctantly glanced up, certain he felt her warmth of spirit reflected in his own face. She surely noticed the blushing, but mercifully only asked, "You don't mind, do you? I know my curiosity is excessive at times, but you _are_ our only expert on all things Aedyran. And magic. And the Leaden Key, about which I _do_ have more questions…"

Aloth groaned at the mention of _his_ former career. "If those are the options, then holiday traditions it is."

"Splendid!" she smiled. Then she dropped her eyes, blushing a bit herself now as she added, "You'll let me know, though, if I'm bothering you too much with questions? I don't mean to annoy you."

"You don't," he replied without hesitation. _Annoy_ was certainly not the word for her effect on him, though he was doing his utmost _not_ to consider too closely what else to call it. "Your curiosity is...it's…" _A welcome distraction. An endearing glimpse of your mind's quirks. Refreshing in contrast to the two-faced civility of Aedyr. Confusing at times and never dull._ But all he could come up with to actually say was, "...oddly...charming."

Given the delighted and predatory smirk this brought to her face, that may have been the wrong thing to say. Or, he reflected, exactly the right thing, as she leaned closer and said, "Well, then. Can I _charm_ you with another question?"

"Go on," he said, already quite charmed.

She gestured to the grimoire, still open across his lap. "How does it work, your book?"

"My grimoire," he corrected automatically, and she nodded with a look of eager inquiry in her eyes.

"Are the spells just too much to memorize, that they have to be written down?" she asked.

Aloth huffed. "Not at all. The words of power are simple enough. I don't just read them from the grimoire; the spells themselves - the soul energy that powers them - are stored in the pages, contained and defined by the words and symbols, by how they're arranged. The challenge is not in recalling phrases, but in coaxing that energy back out of the grimoire when I need it, in the form that I need. It must be stored just so; released just so - it takes years of study to master the precision required to cast from even the simplest grimoire, and it takes strength of will to bend it to your purpose, not to mention strength of arms to heft the thing."

"Oh." Lenneth frowned. "Sounds more complicated than I thought."

"Everything's more complicated than you think, when you start to look closer at it," Aloth soothed.

"True," she shrugged, still looking disappointed.

"Watcher," he asked, appraising that look of disappointment and finding it unacceptable not to resolve it, if he could, "do you...Why did you ask about the grimoire?"

"Honestly," she sighed, "I thought...I hoped maybe I could learn a bit of what you do. I mean, I've about got the hang of shooting a pistol, now, but what with sticking to the back of our group to make good use of it, I've got a far better view than I used to of my favorite wizard at work," she elbowed him again, gently now that she had his full attention anyway, "and it's...well. It's a wonder to behold, Aloth."

Stumbling over that _favorite_ (and then chiding himself, _you're the_ only _wizard here, it doesn't count_ ), it took him a moment to catch up and process her words. "You...want to learn to do magic?"

"It was a silly idea," she shrugged, glancing away. "Don't know where I'd put a grimoire, anyway, amongst all the knives and the pistol and everything. Or when there'd be time to learn something that takes years."

"Years to _master_ ," he reiterated, eyeing her thoughtfully. "But...to make a beginning…perhaps a few of the simpler spells..."

Her eyes were wide as she looked back to him. "You're not serious."

"Well, I can show you the basics, anyway. I don't know if you could learn to cast in time to put it to use against Thaos, but you could certainly learn how it works. An awareness of the process would be of strategic value to you, at the very least, when you're directing me in battle or facing mages among our opponents."

She studied him for a moment. "You are...far more in favor of this than I'd have guessed."

"Charmed by your curiosity, no doubt," he smirked, winning her brightest giggle in response. He shifted the grimoire from his lap halfway to hers, so that they could both see as he flipped back to the first pages and traced a finger over the lines he'd penned there ages ago - the arcane phrases alongside diagrams like little sparkling stars. "Now this," he began, "would complement your own skills well. Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights - leave an enemy dazed, then slip into the shadows, as you so often do. To such great effect, I dare say."

She traced a finger over the diagrams, following the path of Aloth's own hand, then looked up at him with her smile wide and her eyes sparkling as if reflecting the spell itself. "Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights," she repeated slowly, savoring the words. "Sounds glamorous."


	4. Scene the Fourth: The Assassins

Lenneth was bruised and bleeding, but she was alive and the assassins were not and that was all that mattered.

At least, so she tried to convince herself, as she hauled herself to her feet by her bedroom curtains and stumbled close enough to the nearest corpse to prod it none too gently with a bare toe. Lucky more of her wasn't bare; if the assassins had caught her sleeping, things might have gone very differently. They'd surprised her enough as it was, jumping her as soon as she'd locked her bedroom door after tonight's session of Grimoires for Beginners with the longsuffering Master Corfiser. Too settled at the table out in the hallway where they'd met for lessons to even consider moving till she was almost too sleepy to relocate anyway, Lenneth had stayed up long after Aloth had retired for the night, kicking off her boots and continuing to pore over the pages of the baby grimoire he had her practicing with. Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights was far less glamorous and far more rigorous in practice than it had sounded, but as she began to get the hang of it, her curiosity drew her further into the tome's hints of wonders yet to be unlocked. It seemed (or so Aloth hypothesized) that her experience as a Watcher, so frequently interacting with soul energy, gave her some advantage in learning to manipulate it through a grimoire. He assured her that her progress was rapid compared to the average wizard's. To Lenneth, it still felt sluggishly uncooperative with her goals.

It was also lucky, upon reflection, that she had been carrying her baby grimoire when she got jumped by assassins in her own secure bedroom in Brighthollow.

A frantic pounding on her still-locked door began just as Lenneth was going through assassin-pockets for clues and the spoils of a hard-earned victory. The voice that followed the knocking was Aloth's: "Lenneth? Are you all right? Speak up and tell me you're all right before I burn this door down."

She stumbled to the door, wincing as the movement brought to her attention the several places the assassins had got in a blow against her, unlocked it and swung it open. Aloth's eyes went wide at the scene as he stepped into her room. Beyond him, the rest of the Watcher's entourage gradually crowded in, alerted by the sounds of combat. (The assassins had meant it to be quiet. Lenneth could do quiet. She could also do the primal fury of a Watcher caught barefooted and sleepy and distracted by arcane phrases rattling around in her brain. She'd made it loud.)

Aloth didn't ask again, just looked her over and proclaimed, "You're hurt."

"I'm alive," she corrected. "And I would like to go on the record saying that this," she swept a hand around the room in dramatic summary, "was not my fault."

His mouth quirked in half a smile. "Duly noted. While your ability to jest at this moment is reassuring, you're still bleeding."

"Not from anywhere vital," she said, giving herself a closer look. "I think." Aloth narrowed his eyes in suspicion but let it pass as Lenneth returned to rummaging through the pockets of the dead.

"Who were they?" asked Edér, conducting a similar search of another corpse across the room from her. "Nothing on this one."

"Maybe not in their pockets," Lenneth mused, sensing the souls lingering where their bodies had so recently fallen and reaching out as she had done so many times since the bîaŵac in Cilant Lîs. In moments, her world narrowed to the pinprick window beyond the mundane and then opened out again into the vastness of a soulscape, the murmurs of her comrades falling away to a distant and serene hush as she listened for the memories of her attackers.

When she returned to herself, the room was far less crowded, empty of all save herself, Aloth, and the dead. Aloth stood near the door, shifting from one foot to the other and twisting the hem of his tunic in nervous fingers as he tried to keep one eye on the hallway and one on the Watcher. He brightened in obvious relief when he saw her stir.

"They're searching the grounds," he hastened to explain before she could ask. "The rest of them. Pallegina worried there might be more infiltrating the keep and organized search parties. I...volunteered to keep watch here, while you were occupied with...these." He nodded to the nearest assassin.

"Good call," Lenneth approved, "though if there were any more with this group, I didn't see any memory of it."

"What did you see? Anything of help?"

"Not as much as I'd like," she said, "but one thing's for sure. The Leaden Key sent them. They got their orders from an acolyte like the one we encountered in Defiance Bay - she went through that same series of passphrases and then sent them out after me."

"Of course," Aloth said, looking pained. "I suppose it's too much to hope they would leave you alone after how often we've meddled in their plans."

Lenneth huffed in frustration and, with one last bitter nudge of her toe, abandoned the corpse and lowered herself somewhat stiffly into the chair at her writing desk. "Nipped at their heels, you mean. We're always one step behind Thaos. What are they even trying to accomplish, framing animancers and stealing souls and assassinating Watchers who would just like to get a good night's sleep, for once? From what I saw of their souls, these initiates knew nothing of the ultimate goals their mission was supposed to serve. Just blind pawns in the Grandmaster's schemes."

Now Aloth looked slightly ill. "I can attest, that is...typical of their operations. I was never told any more than the minimum I needed to know for each assignment. Convinced as I was that I served the gods' purposes, I thought that was enough."

Lenneth eyed him thoughtfully. "So I guess it wouldn't help to try and read _your_ soul, any more than my surprise guests here."

"What?" Aloth's eyes widened and his sickly pallor at the discussion of his old masters gave way to, of all things, a blush. It was a disarmingly fetching look on him, Lenneth thought as he argued, "That's surely not necessary, Watcher. I've told you everything I can about my time with the Leaden Key, such as it was. I wish I _could_ tell you more, but I was simply never privy to -"

"All right, all right," Lenneth sighed. "I trust you. Besides, most of the time when I read a _living_ soul it seems to be their past incarnations I get a glimpse of, so I'd probably just see Iselmyr, and as enlightening as that might be, I doubt _she_ was in the Leaden Key."

"Unlikely," Aloth agreed with a wry chuckle and a look of relief.

"Gotta give Thaos credit for one thing, at least - that man knows how to run a secret organization."

"I really wish I could be of more help," Aloth said.

"You are," she insisted. "Hey. I think I managed to get some Dazzling Lights off on that one over by the wardrobe, before the other one tried to stab me." She gestured to her little grimoire, lying half-open near her bed where it had fallen during the fight, the pages bent awkwardly underneath.

"Is that so?" Aloth asked, with a thin attempt at a smile and an arched eyebrow. "I wish I could have seen that."

"Well, I'm not sure if it came out as _lights,_ exactly, or more as a sort of fizzle and pop and then there was a little bit of smoke." She gestured in imitation of this alleged display. "Arcane smoke. Still made a good distraction, right?" She forced a grin, wincing as her too-broad gestures yanked at one of the cuts she'd taken before wrestling a knife away from one of the assassins. "I'll make you proud yet, teach."

"You already do, Lenneth," he said, his voice soft and his expression turning grim as he caught sight of her hand going to her side. "Are you still bleeding?"

"It's possible the word _again_ would be more appropriate than _still_ …" she argued weakly, trying to twist enough to inspect the cut for herself without disturbing it further in the twisting.

Aloth snorted and stepped closer, laying a hand on her elbow as he bent in. "Here. Stop that and hold still. You're only going to make it worse."

Relenting to the logic of letting a friend tend to a wound she couldn't, Lenneth sat still. As still as she could, straining against the mad energy still racing through her from the adrenaline of the fight. Aloth's fingers were cool against her skin, carefully peeling away the ragged edges of bloodstained fabric where the knife had pierced shirt and flesh alike. From the corner of her eye, she could see him wince. He loosed a breath that barely shook. "Well, it's not _terrible_."

"See? I told you I'm still alive."

"I'll believe that better once this is patched up. Bandages?"

"In my travel pack. Always keep a kit there, I go through them so often," she admitted sheepishly. Sparing her the retort she half expected him to make about her habitual recklessness, Aloth went to fetch them.

By the time he returned with bandages and a washbasin to clean the skin about to be bandaged, the Watcher's fatigue had begun to set in. While Aloth methodically tended to the wound, Lenneth sat numbly, running over the evening's events in her mind again and again. She was alive this time, but the Leaden Key surely wouldn't stop. They seemed to have no lack of zealous initiates to do their bidding. And with the secretive nature of their cells, one hand never knowing what the other was doing, would even their Grandmaster's defeat put an end to their attacks on her? She was alive - on borrowed time. And very, very tired.

Aloth seemed to notice her sinking mood. "Watcher?" His voice was gentle but the sound of it brought her down-spiraling train of thought to a firm halt.

Lenneth stirred to find him kneeling by her chair, the basin and bandages all out of sight now. "Oh - all finished?"

He frowned. "For several minutes now. You were so still, I thought perhaps you were inspecting their souls again and I didn't wish to interrupt. Are you sure you're all right?"

"Just...tired," she admitted. "Maybe actually tired enough to sleep for once. Or maybe Leaden Key assassins will just be one more thing haunting my dreams now," she grumbled.

"The nightmares are getting worse, then?" he guessed, leaning closer, his expression pinched in concern.

"I don't think it's the sort of thing that's just going to start getting better," she countered, her voice aquaver. "Not while Thaos is still out there." She turned her head as she felt the tears well up in her eyes, but too late to escape the wizard's notice. So, if she couldn't hide it anyway, she raised a hand to get rid of the evidence.

Aloth caught her hand halfway there and held it in a grasp so tentative that she held her breath for fear of breaking free of his hold against her own wishes. "We'll fix this, Lenni," he told her, confidence in his voice as he met her eyes. She blinked away the tears, bringing her other hand up to wrap around his and keep him there for that moment. "I'm with you," he said, and she knew it for the truth.

"Thank you," she finally whispered, overwhelmed beyond further words by that truth.

"And…" he dropped his eyes. "If you really want to try - If you think it would help, to read my soul, if perhaps there's some memory of the Leaden Key I've overlooked…"

She blinked at him. "You don't overlook much, as a rule," she said as her grin began to return. "I appreciate the offer, but you really mustn't tempt my curiosity like that."

He squinted at her, wary again. "You've every reason to be curious about the Leaden Key, if the information could prevent another such attack as this."

"Not about them, dear wizard. About _you._ " She took a moment to enjoy the blush returning to his cheeks before explaining. "Don't we both know, if you give me such an opening I'll surely get carried away seeking out every corner of your soul I can. Iselmyr included."

"I'm not _that_ interesting," he protested.

" _I_ think you are," she countered, and perhaps she'd basked in his blush a little too much, because now she felt its mirror image warming her own face. So of course she took to babbling. "And you keep your secrets so well, of course I'm intrigued. I thought Iselmyr was your great secret, and then it turned out you were in the Leaden Key, too. All this time I thought I had you figured out, and suddenly you're pulling more secrets out of nowhere, you know? Gotta respect a well-played con like that, even when I'm the one who got played."

"I never meant to...to _play_ you like that," Aloth insisted.

Lenneth giggled. "Don't look so stricken, I'm trying to tell you I was _impressed_. But it seems now I'm convinced you're this great man of mystery with layer upon layer of secrets to be uncovered and I cannot rest till I know them _all_." She shrugged and tentatively squeezed his hand. "Or...maybe I just want to know _you_ better, Aloth. Because...that's what friends do."

He was very still for a moment. Then he slowly stood, releasing her hands before he met her eyes again and said, in a carefully restrained tone of voice, "You already know all my great secrets, I'm sure. What's left is quite mundane." And as much as his earlier promise to be with her had struck her as the truth, Lenneth knew instinctively that this...wasn't. But she let it pass, with a knowing smile. No use denying herself the pleasure of discovering his next secret later, after all. When he was ready. And whatever he might hold back for now, _I'm with you_ was a truth that made trifles of all secrets.

"Then I suppose," said Lenneth, "the mundane art of conversation suits it better than any soul-reading."

His answering smile was not entirely forced. "If by 'conversation' you mean 'Lenneth's curiosity gets the better of her and she asks me endless, unconnected questions,' then…" he shrugged. "I shall endeavor to keep up."

With a slow nod, Lenneth carefully got to her feet. "I'll hold you to that. But…" She stifled a yawn. "Tomorrow is soon enough to begin. I think I really might be tired enough to sleep without dreams for once."

Aloth nodded and backed toward the door as she headed for her bed. "Rest well, Watcher."

She was nearly asleep before he had even closed the door behind him. And if her sleep was not entirely without dreams that night, at least they were nothing to do with her past life, nor with imminent assassinations, but featured chiefly the look in her wizard's eyes when she caught his hand catching hers.


	5. Scene the Fifth: The Hammer

Aloth hesitated to approach the Watcher huddled near the firepit, but even over the raucous celebration that seemed likely to shake the very roof of the Gréf's Rest from its rafters, Lenneth somehow took notice of him hovering on her periphery and met his eyes. So there was no more avoiding it. With a smile stretched thin, he stepped closer and held out the cup he was carrying like an offering.

Lenneth looked at it as if it were another so-called "thermal pearl" about to sprout four arms and call her its mother. "Tea?"

"Tea," Aloth confirmed. "You were far too long in that freezing lake." _So long_ , he thought, _I was sure I'd never have this chance again._

She nodded, between shivers, tugging her cloak closer around her shoulders before reaching to take the cup between her hands. "I...wasn't really thinking about how cold I'd be if I survived that."

Because she had no expectation of surviving it at all. The thought hung unspoken between them for a moment as both the elves stood staring into the fire, an island of quiet amidst Stalwart's celebrations of the miracle the Watcher had wrought.

From the corner of his eye Aloth saw her take a token sip, then another, slowly and stiffly. Having given up the cup, his hands grew restless. He clasped them first one way, then another, fingers tapping against the back of his hand in what he belatedly realized was the rhythm of whatever shanty Kana was bellowing across the room while the townsfolk danced.

"Lenneth," he finally asked, "why did you do it?"

It took her a moment to answer, slowly turning her eyes up from the teacup. "Hm?"

"Any one of us could have wielded the hammer," he went on, the cadence of his voice picking up speed as he got to the point of what had been weighing on him like the weight of that moon-rock itself, sinking below the waves. "We would have. Gladly."

"I couldn't ask that of you," she said, her voice soft but her eyes now alert and wide as she watched him.

"Yes, you could," he argued. "The necessity was clear. And if stopping the Eyeless were our only purpose, it might not have mattered so much, but Thaos is still out there and you...are in a unique position to deal with him."

"Gotta make those nightmares count for something," she said with dry amusement, and if her grin was still a little stiff, he thought it made her look more herself than she had since they'd fished her from the lake.

"They will," he assured her with such conviction that her grin faltered and she returned her gaze to the tea. "Lenneth," he began again after a moment, "forgive my impertinence, but I'm still...perplexed. You've always struck me as a woman determined to survive, against all odds. Not that it's ever stopped you from taking ridiculous risks, but that's clearly just because you're convinced you _can_ beat the odds, every time. But you sent us all away and took up that hammer like…"

"Like the odds had come calling," Lenneth nodded. "I know. I'm still not sure how I got out of that lake; it's all a bit hazy, like I was already half-drowned the whole time…" She shuddered. "Well. I just thought, if sinking that rock was the last thing I did, it'd be worth it."

Aloth clasped his hands tightly behind his back to halt the fidgeting. _I thought I'd lost you, and I realized I never want to,_ he thought. Or, _Whatever was worth dying for, isn't there - couldn't there be - something between us worth living for?_ Or, _I have to tell you, before some other heroic moment takes you away from me again and there's no more hazy miracles to save you -_

But as his mind grasped for the words, discarding phrase after phrase, she explained, "I kept thinking of my sister."

The word, so straightforward, cut through the miasma of Aloth's thoughts. "Your sister?" he echoed, glancing her way to see the Watcher now staring absently at the teacup again.

"If the Eyeless marched on the Dyrwood, what would stop them going further? I was in a _unique position_ , as you put it, to stop them here and now, and if I backed down to save my own skin, and someday _she_ paid the price for it…"

"I see," he nodded.

Lenneth met his eyes again with a rueful grin. "I know any of you could have handled the hammer. Gods know I'd barely even have the strength to wield it myself if it weren't magic," she chuckled, loosing one hand from the teacup to jestingly flex one slender arm and tease a smile from Aloth. "But I couldn't stop thinking of Bree, so it had to be me."

"Ah, so this sister has a name," he teased in return, abandoning for now, with mixed relief and frustration, the confession intended to go with the tea. This glimpse of a side of Lenneth he'd rarely seen was worth pursuing, for now. And perhaps he could draw her further out of the uncharacteristically quiet mood she'd fallen into since the Eyeless.

"Of course she has a name, you wit," Lenneth smiled. "It's actually Briella."

"You, of all people, can't blame me for curiosity. You never speak of your family, even this sister for whom you would sacrifice yourself."

Lenneth shrugged, pursing her lips in thought for a moment, then downed the rest of the tea. "Was that a challenge?"

"Consider it a request. From one who...would care to know you better."

She smiled so warmly at his phrasing that her chills at last seemed to subside, and she nodded. "Fair enough. I've nosed about in your secrets enough by now. About time I told my own."

Aloth grinned. "Oh, if it's _fair_ we're aiming for, this could take all night, considering how many of _your_ questions I must have answered."

Lenneth tossed her hair and grinned back at him. "No, no, too late to call that debt in now. You had your chance to question me back, every time I asked you things."

"Assuming I could get a word in edgewise!"

"Come on, you just have to append the question to your own answer!" She giggled. "Besides, you're older. There's simply more life experience for me to ask _you_ about."

"Fine, fine," Aloth conceded with an amiable roll of his eyes. "So...your sister, at least."

Lenneth nodded but fell silent for a moment, twirling the empty teacup around a finger as she thought. "I was seven when Briella was born," she began at last. "And Bree was twelve when our brother, Tullien, was born."

"Wait, you have a brother too?"

"We _had_ a brother."

"...Oh."

"Not for nearly long enough." Lenneth sighed, cradling the empty teacup in her hands again as if craving the echo of warmth. "Tully was the sweetest, most loving child. But Mom died giving birth to him, and Dad…well, he never really recovered from losing her." The corner of her mouth rose just slightly. "Dad was a tinker and a musician - I told you once wandering's in my blood. He was born in the Vailian Republics, spent most of his life traveling from city to city, making a living by playing in taverns and mending people's pots. Until he ended up in Rauatai, mended a clock for this beautiful trader from the Living Lands, and somehow persuaded her to marry him." Her eyes lit with the memory. "Mom always claimed she said yes because he was a wonder at fixing clocks but hopeless at observing their function, and he needed her to manage his comings and goings. Which Dad always laughed at but never denied." She sighed. "He was lost without her, that's for certain. From the day Tully was born it was Bree and I that took care of him. Dad hardly acknowledged his son existed. He sat playing sad music and tinkering with that old clock that had won him Mom's hand in the first place. He was never violent," she glanced at Aloth almost apologetically, "for which I'm thankful, but he was never fully himself again either. He just...slowly slipped away from us. Bree and I tried to...to manage his comings and goings, like Mom had done, or at least just to get him to go find taverns to play in or things to tinker. And he did, often enough that we didn't starve, at least, but never without our prompting. He withdrew more and more until, on Tully's first birthday, he never came home from his last gig." She sniffled, staring deep into the empty cup. "We found him the next day, drowned in the harbor. Never determined for sure if it was an accident or…" She broke off, her voice strained.

"Lenn," Aloth murmured, reaching out to her. She looked up and blinked, then accepted his embrace, sighing against his chest as he held her. "I'm sorry," he whispered against her hair. "I shouldn't have brought this up at a time like this."

She snorted a laugh and pulled back enough to meet his eyes. "As if our lives ever present a better time."

She had a point; they traveled from crisis to crisis, these days, and it was a wonder she kept as cheerful an outlook as she did in the face of recent trials, let alone long-past losses. At the very least, confidence was a mask she wore superbly well, and Aloth had considerable experience with such facades himself. He wouldn't press her to abandon the comfort of such a mask. "I understand if you don't want to go on…"

"Too late." She managed a fragile smile as she stepped back. "I just...haven't given this much thought lately. Guess I still miss Dad, more than I realized. But I know he was...kind of a disaster. All his life, really. Mom only mitigated it. And yet I wouldn't have traded him for the world. He could brighten any room, turn any frown into a smile, even if only for a little while." She shifted the teacup from hand to hand. "Sometimes I worry I take after him too much. Glad to claim his good qualities, but...well, I think that's why I fight so hard to just survive."

"You had reason enough to fight for that, being orphaned so young," Aloth observed.

"Yeah," she shrugged. "Plus the siblings needed me. We were on our own after that. Whatever other family we might have, they lived as far away as the Republics and the Living Lands, and our parents had hardly ever even mentioned relatives there. The Rauataians in general had little interest in a bunch of elven kids with no real ties to the community. So we fended for ourselves. I found work and Bree took care of Tully. It was hard...but we were doing all right." She arched an eyebrow at his expression. "Don't look at me like that, Aloth. We really were. Kids are resilient, you know. We were a little lost at first but it got easier. As long as we had each other." Then her face fell. "For a little while."

"Then...your brother?" Aloth prompted gently.

"I got sick first," Lenneth continued, her voice softer and her words coming slower than before. "Some sort of fever. I couldn't even get out of bed for days. I barely remember any of those days, but Bree says I must have been hallucinating, that I was talking crazy in my sleep the whole time. She...never would say if Tullien was the same way. But by the time I came back to reality, he was dead. He must have caught the fever from me, but he was too little and too weak to fight it off." She glanced down, swallowing back tears and running a thumb along the teacup's rim. "Bree never caught it at all. So she had to do everything. Bury our brother, keep me fed and bathed, keep _herself_ fed and bathed…she was practically a baby herself."

"But as resourceful as her sister, it seems," he offered. Lenneth had resumed her original stance, huddled by the fire, clutching the teacup to her chest with both hands. Aloth restrained the urge to reach out for her again.

Lenneth barely registered the compliment. "I thought she blamed me. Tully was our little treasure; we both loved him, but he was Briella's whole life at that point. I was sure she blamed me for passing the sickness on to him."

"Did she?" Aloth asked, not sure he wanted the answer. Impressed as he had been with Briella's resourcefulness, he would bear a mighty grudge against her if she blamed her sister for simply getting sick. It was clear, whatever Bree's opinion, that Lenneth still blamed herself.

Lenneth shrugged. "Maybe. Probably not as much as I imagined, but kids do blow things out of proportion, right? Anyway, it definitely strained things between us for a while. But then...she was all I had left, as I was for her. As she got older, we got closer. It's not all tragedy and loss," she smiled. "I have years of wonderful memories with my sister."

Aloth hesitated before noting, "You travel without her now, though, and never spoke of her before this."

"Nothing so tragic this time," Lenneth laughed. "She...grew up and got married, that's all."

"Oh!" Aloth stared, wide-eyed, taking a moment to reset his mental image of this little sister from the tiny elf-child tending her baby brother to a woman grown. As Lenneth went on, he suspected she still had to pause for such a reset at times as well.

"So she's fine without me now - outside of, you know, stopping hordes of Eyeless for her," Lenneth grinned, resting a hand on the hammer now hanging from her belt. "After Tully died, Bree found work in a tailor's shop. We'd, ah, moved on from Rauatai by then. Some of _my_ work...well, you already know it wasn't always entirely legal. I always ended up trying to pull off grander cons than I could really get away with. People caught on, we had to leave town in a hurry. Town after town. Bree disapproved, but sometimes we didn't have much choice - if there wasn't work to be had, we still had to eat. So she put up with me. We were making our way through the Eastern Reach when she took a job at this tailor's shop in a little village in the Ixamitl Plains. They do some _fancy_ embroidery in those parts, and Bree turned out to have a knack for it. I found a dozen other jobs - mostly legitimate - while she stuck with this one shop." Grinning from ear to ear, she explained, "Turned out the owner's son had taken a fancy to _her_. She married him a few years ago, and, well, I stayed nearby for a while, but with no one left for me to look after, soon I took to wandering again. All the way to Gilded Vale."

"Not...all the way to Caed Nua?" he asked, watching her twist the teacup around a finger again.

"Well, yes," Lenneth said, looking almost surprised, as if she had forgotten about ending up there. "But - you already know that part. Ever since Gilded Vale…"

"I've been wandering with you," he smiled.


	6. Scene the Sixth: The Dance

"Looks like a sitaara," Sagani proposed: matter-of-fact, with only the slightest hint of interest. The others, stumped as they huddled around the battered case and its unidentified contents, looked up at her in surprise. It was the most confident answer that anyone had as yet produced since they discovered the peculiar instrument in the wreckage of an abandoned wagon barely a day's march out from Caed Nua. It certainly was not a harp, as Hiravias had initially guessed, given its strange oblong shape, like a small shield covered in tightened strings rather than the open frame of a harp; nor a proper fiddle, to which Edér likened it, given its lack of a neck to support the strings. While Lenneth was explaining these obvious strikes against their guesses and running through her memories of the various instruments her father had played or tinkered with - plenty of fiddles and something that might have counted as a harp, but unfortunately nothing quite like this contraption - Sagani peeked in and called it a sitaara.

And then she slipped it from its case, sat down with her legs crossed while Itumaak snuggled up against her thigh, balanced the sitaara on her knees, and began to play. She plucked the strings, one after another, testing; then in pairs and chords, tightening tiny knobs when discords sounded; then gradually began sorting sounds into melodies. The tone of it was harp-like, in a way, but more pronounced, defined, shaped by the shield-like box constraining it into something bold and sure.

The rest of them stood staring for several measures before Lenneth and Kana exchanged a delighted grin. "You know how to play it, Sagani?" Kana asked.

Lenneth snorted. "The time for that question was _before_ she started the concert, Kana."

"It's a little smaller than the ones we have in Massuk," Sagani said, whether in answer to Kana's superfluous question or ignoring that and elaborating on her earlier proposal of the thing's name. "Fewer strings. That'll limit what I can play, but yes, I know a few songs."

Kana brightened. "Can you play 'Time and Tide'?"

"Never heard of it," Sagani said, her fingers never breaking stride.

"What about 'Lo, O'er the Gulf the Storm Brews Fierce'? Perhaps if I hum it for you..."

"Look, if _you_ want to play this thing, have at it. I know _a few songs_ , that's all. Yakona's the one with the musical talent in my family."

So they stood around and listened to Sagani's few songs until Kana took to humming along with them. On the third time through a particularly lively tune, as Sagani grew comfortable enough to experiment with a flourish here and there, Kana took to making up lyrics. Each line grew grander and more outlandish than its predecessor. This set Lenneth to giggling until Sagani started in on something different and Kana had to stop and listen again.

Before he could begin improvising lyrics to this tune as well, Lenneth elbowed him. "Hey, this one reminds me a little of a tukaula rhythm. I don't suppose you learned to dance at all in the lore college?"

Kana tilted his head to appraise her. "No, long before that. I wouldn't have guessed you knew the tukaula, though."

"I grew up in Rauatai," she reminded him. "Dancing in the taverns where Dad was playing as soon as I could walk. Now, how much of it I remember after all these years…" She grinned and tugged at the aumaua's hand. "Let's find out?"

Kana followed her with enthusiasm, and his widest grin, to a space of level ground far enough from the wagon to allow for movement, as the rest of their companions scattered to the sidelines of the improvised dance floor, outlining a wide crescent from the wagon where Sagani still sat bent over the sitaara. The dance began with a traditional bow to one's partner, then Lenneth stepped to Kana's side, resting her left hand on his right arm with a wink. They tucked their free hands behind their backs, elbows pointing out, and at the right beat of Sagani's music, they launched into the dance. The tukaula involved several steps forward together, with a curtsy-like bending of the knees every other step, in between turns that had them alternating between facing each other or standing side by side again, constantly changing which arms were linked. Now her right hand rested on his right arm so that they stood almost face to face and their steps forward rotated the pair of them in a tight circle; now he turned so that her right hand rested on his left arm and they stepped backward. It was one of the more formal dances Lenneth had learned, a bit complex for tavern merriment, but that was Rauatai for you. Her towering partner might have made it a little awkward had she not been dancing these steps since she was so tiny that her partners reached down to hold her wee hand instead of holding out their arm for her. Despite the years that had passed since she left Rauatai, her very bones seemed to remember what to do, and Kana beamed with approval and called out encouragement as she met his every step.

After several turns around their dance-floor clearing, when Lenneth had settled with growing confidence into the sequence of the steps, a cough and a tap on her shoulder interrupted the rhythm. She turned to see Edér standing nearby. He grinned and bowed in a fairly good mimicry of the dance's opening courtesy. "Mind if I cut in?" he asked, extending his arm to her. "Been watching you two for a while now and I think I've got the idea."

Lenneth glanced to Kana, who returned Edér's bow and stepped back with a toothy smile. "Go on, Watcher. Show him how it's done."

So she did. Sagani slowed the music's tempo a bit, as Lenneth took Edér's arm and he matched her steps through the first series of turns and promenades. Once or twice he hesitated at the turns, watching to see which direction she faced and which of his arms she reached for, but his steps in the promenades were certain and within a few stanzas of the song they were whirling at full tempo again, laughing and prancing with ease through the meadow.

By the time the song ended and Edér stepped back and bowed again, Lenneth was just getting warmed up. Sagani moved on to another tune, but the rhythm was still close enough to a tukaula that Lenneth found her hand going to the familiar spot at her back, her every other step tending toward the curtsy of the promenades, as she turned from Edér and started back towards the wagon.

And when she spotted Aloth, leaning like a shadow against a tree at the meadow's edge, of course she skipped over to him. "Aloth! Dance with me."

Lenneth grabbed at the wizard's hands and tugged him out into the open as his eyes went wide and objections bubbled to his lips. "What? No, I - really, it's better if I don't -"

"Aloth," she said, slowing but still pulling him along as she retraced her steps back into the open meadow again, "you trust me, don't you?"

He didn't answer, except to cut short whatever protest he was about to voice, stand still, and look her over, from her eyes down to their joined hands and up again. Lenneth gave him her winningest smile, and still he didn't answer, but swallowed once and then went along when she drew him the rest of the way to the center of the clearing.

When she bent in the dance's opening bow, he followed suit. When she reached for his arm, he held it ready for her hand. The song Sagani was playing now was slower than the last. Slowly they got into position and, on just the right beat of the song, stepped out into the first promenade.

It was quiet. Even the music seemed further distant than for the previous dances. Lenneth glanced at her partner several times and found him always avoiding her gaze, yet keeping watch of her well enough from the corner of his eyes to follow her movements and match her turns. With Edér and Kana, she'd laughed through most of the dance, and chatted a bit here and there. With Aloth, for all that she would normally talk his ears off with her questions and her stories, at this moment she couldn't bring herself to break the silence. Perhaps the warmth that spread through her was only from the exertion of so much dancing. Perhaps the tingling in her fingers each time they completed a turn and she laid her hand on his arm again was only weariness setting in. If the turns and sequences of the dance seemed somehow smoother, easier, more natural than before, it was surely just that she had gotten so much practice in before this. Or it was the advantage of dancing with someone not quite so much taller than her as an aumaua or a particularly tall folk farmer. Aloth's arms were at just the right height for her; his steps were just the right length; they fit together _perfectly_ -

But something was off, all the same. Aloth had certainly not begun the dance with such confidence as Kana, who'd known it for years, or even Edér, picking up the gist of it from the sidelines, but the wizard seemed to have been watching her earlier dances closely too and could follow Lenneth's steps without stumbling. Yet the longer they danced together, the stiffer he seemed to grow, keeping up with her but tensing every time they turned, flinching when her hand came to rest on his arm. The next time Lenneth glanced at him, she saw his lips pressed thin and tight.

He noticed her glance and his step faltered at last. Suddenly he came to a halt, retreating from the dance position, leaving Lenneth's hand behind, fluttering in the air.

"Aloth?" she prompted.

"I -" he winced, not meeting her eyes. "I'm sorry. I don't really seem cut out for this."

"You're doing fine," she assured him with a smile. Because, until that moment, he really was, though he seemed fully unaware of it. Lenneth reached for his arm. "Here, let's start again -"

Aloth drew back. "No, I - Please. I really shouldn't."

Lenneth's heart ached for his evident discomfort, and she took a step back with a reluctant nod. Aloth looked about to say more, but then he only grimaced and hurried away. She stood watching him for a moment, rubbing at her elbow as she tried to puzzle out what had brought his dancing to its abrupt end.

At last she turned to walk back toward the wagon and reconvene the group to finish their journey home to Caed Nua. But Sagani was still playing the sitaara, and a cough drew Lenneth's eyes down to see Hiravias standing in her path, hands on his hips.

"What, don't I get a turn?" the druid demanded, arching his good eyebrow at her.

Lenneth summoned a weak smile. "Well, if you're sure you can keep up with me…"

Hiravias snorted a laugh. "Just keep your toes off mine and we'll be fine, Lenni."

It was Lenneth who had to lean to reach her partner this time, though not so much as those who had danced with her as a child or even as much as Kana had had to accommodate her today; Lenneth was not among the tallest of elves herself. So it was not for any awkwardness of dancing with the shorter man that she now went so quietly through the steps. Hiravias made several attempts at conversation, to which Lenneth responded affably enough, but without the laughter and enthusiasm of her earlier dances.

And then, as they faced each other for one of the circle-promenade sequences, Hiravias leaned in and up and murmured to her, "He's wishing he were still over here in my place, you know."

That snapped Lenneth straight out of her reverie. "What?"

"Your boyfriend over there. He'd rather be dancing with you."

She felt her cheeks grow warm, but her steps did not falter. If anything, they lengthened, forcing Hiravias to push himself to keep up with her. "He's not my - What? Why'd he walk away, then? He didn't seem that thrilled to dance with me." She glared down at Hiravias, who was chuckling now. "What?"

"Not your boyfriend," Hiravias echoed her claim, "but you knew exactly who I meant, huh?"

"Well, you said…" she trailed off, trying to recall just what Hiravias had said.

"Nothing that couldn't have applied to Edér or Kana, but you and I both know _they_ weren't on your mind just now."

Lenneth tossed her hair and fixed her gaze just over Hiravias' shoulder in pique. "I think you're making a pretty big assumption here. Playing matchmaker because...because we're both elves, is that it?"

Hiravias laughed. "No, I'm playing matchmaker because I'm sick of watching you both pine for each other like the oblivious fools you are." He snorted as they rotated their position once more, back to the forward promenade with her left hand on his right arm. "Maybe it _is_ because you're elves. You think you have all those extra years to work things out between you. Wouldn't hurt you to try the orlan way, you know. Seize love when you find it. Tell people when you're interested. Life is short, even for an elf."

Lenneth pondered his words for the next several measures of the dance before she spoke again, quietly: "You seem so certain he...feels the same. But when I danced with him, he just seemed desperate to get away."

"Oblivious idiots, I told you. I don't know why he chickened out. I know for sure he wants you, though. There's a scent to it that's, shall we say, unmistakeable."

"Ew," Lenneth wrinkled her nose. "I did not need to know that."

"Well, if you'd just get on with it and bed him before he worries himself to death from trying to act like he doesn't want to, I wouldn't have to complain about it, would I?"

"Hiravias!" Lenneth admonished. "It's...it's not that simple."

"You could at least just kiss him and see what happens." The druid smirked up at her. "I'd give him the same advice, but he wouldn't have listened this far."

"I'm sure he wouldn't," said Lenneth with a bitter laugh. "And I can't just _kiss_ him. He'd be horrified. He could barely stand to dance with me."

"And yet," said Hiravias, "he still wanted to. And if you could see the looks he's sending your way when your eyes are on me, I think you'd agree he still does."

It was all Lenneth could do, from that point on till the dance ended, not to keep looking over her shoulder in hopes of glimpsing these elusive looks. But when the last bows were taken and the last notes faded away, as the group reconvened at the wagon while Sagani tucked the sitaara back into its case and slung it over her shoulder, Aloth fell into place at the rear of their marching order and met Lenneth's questioning gaze with only a faint and enigmatic smile.

She spent the rest of the march back to Caed Nua silently debating whether she'd imagined the blush that went with that smile.


	7. Scene the Seventh: The Question

Though the Watcher had places to be and problems both her own and other people's to untangle, she did not immediately set out again from Caed Nua to tackle such matters. Lenneth and her friends had earned a rest, she declared. So for several days she held court in her own keep while they recovered their strength.

Her wizardry lessons with Aloth resumed the day after their return as if nothing had changed in the interim. At least, officially nothing had changed. He made an awkward apology, as they sat down over her grimoire, for his abrupt abandonment of her in the dance; she told him not to mention it, and apologized in turn for putting him on the spot like that. She wanted to ask him a hundred questions about why the dance had bothered him so, and whether Hiravias had been right about his...well, _scent_ , but she was certainly not going to put it that way...and she couldn't think of a better way to put it before _he_ was asking _her_ questions about her grimoire and she had to pay attention to what he was saying and not go on daydreaming about the shape of his lips as he said it.

 _You could at least just kiss him and see what happens,_ Hiravias' advice echoed in her memory every time she saw Aloth. _He'd be horrified,_ she repeated her own words to herself every time. Since he'd started wandering with her so many weeks ago, he'd become one of her dearest friends. With his secrets now safe in her keeping - Iselmyr, the Leaden Key, his father - Aloth seemed at ease in her company. He challenged her both in learning wizardry and in reconsidering her assumptions. He didn't shy from letting her know when she was being foolish. He'd proven his loyalty and care for her over and over, in battle and in the quieter moments.

But he'd frozen when they danced.

So she told herself that kisses would only make things worse and Hiravias was full of it. She was pretty sure that the last part was true, at least in general. But there were moments when she caught Aloth looking at her in a way she couldn't quite read and she wondered if the druid had a point, after all.

Once, after dinner, she almost took Hiravias' advice to just test his theories with an experimental kiss. The others had gone up to bed. Lenneth and Aloth sat alone at Brighthollow's dining table, arguing late into the night over The Animancy Problem. Lenneth was well aware of Aloth's aversion to the practice, and respected that; but until the collapse of the hearings in Defiance Bay she'd harbored a vague hope that the animancers might hold the key to fixing what had happened to her at Cilant Lîs. The riots against Defiance Bay's animancers in the wake of the Duc's murder had put that hope on hold, since there were few enough of them now left in the Dyrwood, but tonight she'd gotten a bit tipsy, then a bit maudlin about the state of her overwhelmed soul, and had begun plying Pallegina with questions about animancy in the Vailian Republics. Aloth, it seemed, had taken exception to this, though he waited till the end of dinner to express his objections, when they were alone. Lenneth, frustrated with her worsening nightmares and recalling how the worst of the crimes attributed to animancers in Defiance Bay had been Thaos' work in framing them, was inclined at first to dismiss his concerns as Aedyran squeamishness, until in his earnestness he grasped her hand, looking direct into her eyes, and pled with her not to do anything rash. The look in his eyes was such that for a moment she thought a kiss would be the least horrifying thing she could do to him, so she almost did. Then he seemed to suffer second thoughts about so direct an approach to swaying her opinion, dropped her hand and sat back as his face reddened, and the moment was lost.

But never quite forgotten. Several days later, Lenneth wandered into the keep's library in search of some records or other, pertinent to a vassal's request that had crossed her desk. The specifics fled her mind, however, when she rounded a corner of the stacks to see Aloth there, looking over a shelf of heavy arcane tomes. Greetings were exchanged, and genuine smiles - and more than a few surreptitious glances at each other as they went about their business. Lenneth finally conceded that she'd have to go back and reread the vassal's letter and look for the records again with a better idea of what she was looking for and without the distraction of a wizard who was doing his humble best _not_ to distract her but also definitely keeping a very thoughtful eye on her when he didn't think she was looking.

So she sighed, and reshelved the various ledgers she'd been looking through, and called a farewell to Aloth. He smiled and waved in return, and looked back to his book.

Halfway to the door, she could contain herself no longer. She threw caution to the wind. "Aloth," she called suddenly, turning back to face him, "what would you do if I kissed you?"

He stared at her agape, as the book slipped from his fingers and slammed to the floor. Lenneth winced at the sound, silently cursing the abruptness of her question, the thoroughly unromantic timing. _Should have left well enough alone,_ she chided herself, clenching and unclenching her fists as she waited for his response - _any_ response. When the silence and Aloth's frozen stare became unbearable, she blurted, "Never mind. I shouldn't have - I'm sorry. Pretend I never said that," and turned on her heel to escape from his gaze before she could make any further fool of herself.

"What would you do if I kissed you?"

The question more than took Aloth by surprise. It had been all he could do, since he nearly lost her to the Eyeless, to not blurt out his feelings at the most inopportune times, but his life had been nothing if not a course in self-control. But the more he passed on these imperfect opportunities to bare his heart, the higher and more impenetrable grew the walls around it. As they resumed their routines in Caed Nua and the ease of their friendship, he told himself that this was enough: to see her safe, to be at her side _keeping_ her safe, to talk with her and see her smile and hear her endless questions. He could hope for it to grow into more in time. If they had such time. The first priority was dealing with her soul's Awakening lest it drive her mad before they had a chance. That was her whole concern right now, he told himself: if she might ever welcome more than friendship with him, he wasn't going to let himself seek out clues of it now and set himself up for disappointment.

And then out of the blue, this question about kissing him. He barely felt the book fall from his hands as he stood there trying to process it. Was she serious? Lenneth was full of jests much of the time. Would she joke about a thing like this? He'd thought the dance was a joke of sorts, when Sagani played the sitaara; Lenneth was dancing with everyone, after all; it meant nothing. And yet dancing with her, arm in arm, so intent on one another's every movement - it _couldn't_ mean nothing. The weight of what it might mean had overwhelmed him till he could take no more of her nearness and had fled, missing her hand's weight on his arm as soon as it was gone.

Was this the same sort of thing? Was she going around kissing everyone just out of curiosity? It would mean nothing to her that it meant everything to him. So he froze, unable to answer.

Or was it possible that she was serious?

"Never mind," she said when he took too long to give her an answer, and his heart sank as she turned to go. Probably not serious, then.

But never once, he realized, had she looked like she was jesting.

 _Ye daft tit,_ chided the voice in the back of his head, his lifelong ally of circumstance, his unwelcome councillor. _Are ye gaunnae jist let her gang away then?_

It had been some time since Iselmyr asserted herself. Not since Aloth had, with Lenneth's encouragement, come to terms with her - with that part of himself. Now, she mostly let him be and trusted his judgment.

For once, he decided to trust hers.

"Watcher," he called, taking two steps forward, stepping over the fallen book. "Wait. Lenneth."

She glanced back at him over her shoulder. Her eyes were wary now, much too vulnerable for one merely ignored in the middle of a jest. Gaining confidence, he stepped closer. "May I ask you a question, Lenni?"

She blinked at him, then nodded, turning back toward him. "Of course." Her voice was calm, but he recognized the mask. All business, assuming his question was of more mundane matters than the world-shaking one she'd briefly opened up.

Too briefly. So he'd have to shake it back open again. Another step toward her; he met her gaze and held it. "What would you do," he asked, "if _I_ kissed _you_?"

Her eyes went wide; her hands flew to hide her gasp. After a moment, a smile crept into her eyes first, then her hands revealed it as she reached out for him. "Do you want to find out?" she asked as he took her hands.

"By all the gods, _yes_ ," he breathed without hesitation.

"Well, then," she said, eyes gleaming as she drew closer, "go ahead."

Only then did he realize that in reopening her question he'd turned it around, and taken it upon himself to kiss her first. A terrible idea - and an excellent one, as Iselmyr in his head echoed, _On wi' it, then, will ye? Enow o' yer bletherin', kiss 'er!_

Iselmyr did not, of course, have the grace to quietly leave them to it as Aloth leaned in to kiss the Watcher; but as the voice in his head was mostly now muttering timely advice about the positioning of his head and lips and such, he was not inclined to complain.

His lips met hers and stayed there only briefly; _too briefly?_ he barely had time to wonder as he pulled back, searching her eyes, before Lenneth's arms slipped over his shoulders and pulled him back to her, kissing him again, and certainly not briefly this time. Long enough for his hands to find the spot at the small of her back where they fit just right, while her fingers wove into his hair. Long enough for Iselmyr to actually shut up for a moment.

When this second kiss ended, they stood there in each other's arms, lost in each other's eyes. There were flecks of green in the hazel of Lenneth's eyes, he noted. It was utterly charming, and she was even more beautiful this close - and with the luxury of time to gaze at her so directly - than in all his previous careful glances. He considered telling her this but filed it away for the future, saying instead: "I must apologize, I think."

Lenneth laughed, light and merry. "What could you possibly have to apologize for?"

"Well, it seems I have the answer to my question - you would simply kiss me back - but it may now be impossible to answer yours. What _would_ I have done if you'd kissed me first?"

She traced a thumb slowly along his cheek, appraising him with hooded eyes. "I'd like to assume the answer would be the same, you know."

Aloth considered this, leaning into her hand. "Probably. It would now, at least."

"Not before?" she asked with an impish grin.

"Well, it would have certainly startled me. I dropped a book just hearing you ask it."

Lenneth's laughter was brief this time, punctuated with a kiss that startled him only a little. And then, as promised, he kissed her back.


	8. Epilogue

It was warm and cozy by the fireplace in the Watcher's quarters. Wizardry lessons, Lenneth reflected, had grown much cozier in general since she and Aloth figured out that their feelings were mutual. He was folded neatly into one side of the sofa drawn up to her fireplace, his grimoire open on his lap as he went over the theory of some spell or other with her, and she was sprawled over the remainder of the sofa, leaning against his shoulder, fingers entwined with his when he wasn't busy turning pages. She sighed in contentment at the sound of his voice and the warmth of his hand in hers, watching him through half-lidded eyes instead of following along where he was pointing in the book.

Then he stopped speaking, and she realized at his expectant look that he'd asked a question. Which, given that for the last several minutes she'd been focusing more on everything she loved about the wizard himself than on the spell he was trying to teach her, Lenneth was completely unprepared to answer. "Sorry, say that again?" she asked, eyes going wide and innocent in her best simulation of a student who had been paying attention all along.

Aloth's look was more amused than annoyed. "Lenneth," he said, lips turning up at the corners ever so slightly, "do you want to become a wizard or don't you?"

She considered this for a moment, then answered with a smirk, "Well, yes. It's a long-term goal, though. Which is fine! I don't mind taking years to master this, really. But at present, I also want to _kiss_ a wizard."

He laughed, squeezing her hand. "A goal you intend to achieve much sooner, I take it."

She leaned closer, drawing him in with a flutter of eyelashes as her smile widened. "That's up to you, isn't it? We _are_ in the middle of a lesson."

He regarded her for a moment longer. Then, returning her smile as he released her hand, he folded the grimoire closed and placed it carefully on the ground before gathering her into his arms.

Several kisses later, she murmured against his lips, "All our lessons should have included kissing breaks. Why did it take us so long?"

Instead of responding to her statement with the laugh she'd expected, Aloth leaned back, just enough to meet her eyes, considering her question seriously. "For my part," he answered after a moment's thought, "it seemed too much to hope for. And even once I dared to hope, I couldn't find the words to broach the subject." He shrugged and gave her a wry smile. "Most of my experience with, ah, flirting has involved Iselmyr doing so too recklessly and _me_ getting in trouble for it. Your friendship - and your support, every time you learned the secrets I expected would end it - were too precious to risk offending you if my affections were...not returned."

"So you just kept that the biggest secret of all," Lenneth grinned. "And the best one. I am _not_ offended by your affections, darling, just so you know."

"So I gathered," he chuckled, "since you persist in distracting me from your lessons with kisses."

She arched an eyebrow at him. "Want me to stop?"

"Never."

"Good." She kissed him at that, of course; briefly, and then looked him over as she considered her own question. "On second thought, maybe taking our time to get here was a _good_ thing."

"Is that so? A moment ago you seemed to regret it."

"Yes, I'd be glad to have started kissing you much sooner. But I'd hate it if that were all we had. Look at us, Aloth - on the surface, neither of us seems all that trustworthy; you with all your secrets, me with all my schemes. It's a wonder we learned to trust each other with anything, let alone our hearts. But now I couldn't ask for a more loyal friend than you. I've loved getting to know you, the heart of you that you don't let most people see."

Aloth held a deadpan expression long enough to ask, "Does that mean your inquisitiveness has come to an end? Are you all out of questions?"

Her shriek of laughter brought out his smile again. "I'll think up new ones if I have to. Just to hear you talk."

"You know," he pointed out, with a tip of his head to the grimoire on the floor, "I _was_ talking just a moment ago. About casting Fleet Feet so you can get in stabbing range of your enemies quicker."

"Mm-hm," she hummed. "It sounded lovely."

"Would you like to hear it again," he nudged her, "and perhaps actually learn it this time?"

She sighed overdramatically, leaning back to free him to reach the book. "Only if I am to be rewarded with a kiss as soon as I manage to cast it. Deal?"

His eyes were on the grimoire as he reopened it to where they had left off, but Aloth made no attempt to hide his smirk. "Perhaps I should think twice before arranging such a reward for the moment when you've succeeded in hastening everything you do, but," he met her eyes and took her hand as the pair of them once more settled into place looking over the spell on the page, "deal."


End file.
